Benedict’s instructions had also called for an Episcopal funeral service, since he had been baptized and confirmed in the Anglican communion; and old Father Highmount was pressed into service for the occasion, having to come out of retirement because his successor, young Reverend Boyjian (he was, to Ernest High-mount’s horror, not only Low Church but of Armenian descent!) was in the Bahamas with his wife on a vacation financed by the vestry in lieu of a much-needed rise in salary.
As the one and only next of kin, Leslie Carpenter decided to bypass a formal service in the church because of the rowdy press and the great curiosity of the public. A delegation of Benedict’s closest friends, selected by Leslie on Marsh’s advice, came by invitation from south, east, and west. It was calculatedly not large, so that the company assembled on the meadow before the little Greek temple at two o’clock Friday afternoon, even with the pool from the news media included, was handled without difficulty by Chief Newby’s officers, with the state police relegated to the boundaries of the property to balk crank crashers and just plain nosy noonans from town.
It could not be said that Father Highmount produced a snappy service. He had always been a mumbler, a failing that had hardly improved with age; he was also suffering from a sloppy spring cold and he was having trouble with his dentures, so that most of what he said before the mausoleum came out a mumbo jumbo of mutters, squeaks, snuffles, and spit. About all the Queens heard with any clarity were “resurrection and the life,” “Dominus illuminatio The Lord is my light,” “My soul fleeth,” “St. John fourteen one,” and a final mighty “one God, world without end Amen!” which was miraculously free of sludge.
But the day was lovely, the breeze ruffled the old man’s few fine silvery hairs in benediction, and no one seemed to mind the unintelligibility of his message to the dead man. For there was a quality of sincerity in his performance, a devotion to what he was saying over the invisible stranger in the casket (Leslie had wisely decided, in view of her cousin’s wounds, not to put Philbert Duncan’s cosmetic artistry to the test by having an open-coffin service), even though no one understood the old man but himself — there was in this quality a something that raised the flesh and brought a meaning out of the mystery. In spite of himself, Ellery was impressed.
He found himself reflecting that the whole bit — Benedict’s valueless life, his dearth of accomplishment in spite of unlimited means, his uncompensated guilts, his failure to contribute anything but money to sad and greedy women who promptly threw it away, and finally a brutal death on the eve of what might have turned out to be his reformation — the whole bit was out of the theater of the absurd. Or, for that matter (thinking of the mausoleum), of Sophocles.
Still, he had redeemed part of his worthlessness. Aside from the mysterious Laura, Benedict had thought to provide for the far-out contingency — an act of incredible foresight, when one thought about it — that he might not survive the weekend. In which case, he had decided, everything went to little Leslie Carpenter, who had a very positive idea — as she had apparently told him so often to his face — of what could be done with three million a year.
So his life had not been all wasteland.
Ellery half expected the hapless Laura to put in an appearance at the funeral — in a dramatic black veil surely — weeping for sympathetic cameras and perhaps angling for a paid interview with LIFE or LOOK, or the slushier newspapers. But no mystery woman showed up in Wrightsville or sent a telegram or a letter to Leslie or Marsh or the police; and no unidentified funeral wreath arrived to pique the press, Newby, or the Queens.
Only Leslie, Marsh, a trapped Miss Smith, the three ex-wives, Chief Newby, and the Queens remained while Duncan’s assistants carried the bronze casket into the mausoleum, set it precisely on the catafalque, arranged the many wreaths and floral baskets artistically, and emerged to lock the door and hand the key to Chief Newby. Who turned it over to Marsh, as the attorney of record, for safekeeping until the estate should be settled.
There was no conversation on the tramp back through the fields to the house. Glancing over his shoulder, Ellery saw the stained glass in the little building glow in the sunlight, and he hoped that Johnny Benedict was comforted, although — his unorthodox views being what they were — he doubted it.
The fleet of taxis and private cars had all driven off; only two state policemen were left guarding the road; in spite of the sun and the breeze, there was a clammy feel to the air, and not only the women shivered.
Waiting for them inside was young Lew Chalanski, an assistant prosecutor of Wright County, the son of a popular former prosecutor, Judson Chalanski. Young Chalanski conferred with Chief Newby aside, smiled his father’s famous vote-getting smile, and left.
Newby’s poet’s face was preoccupied.
“I understand everyone here except Alice Tierney, who’s local, lives in New York City. You’re all free to go home.”
“Meaning you haven’t got a damned thing on us,” Marcia Kemp said, tossing her red head like a flamenco dancer. “Or you’d never let us out of your state.”
“Correction. What it means, Miss Kemp,” the chief said, “is that we haven’t enough evidence against any individual to bring before a grand jury at the present time. But I want to emphasize: this is an open case, under active investigation, and you three ladies are the hot suspects. Do any of you have plans to leave New York State in the immediate future?” They said they did not. “That’s fine. If that situation should change, however, get in touch first with Inspector Queen at his office in Centre Street. The Inspector’s agreed to act as liaison man for us up here.”
“How cosy,” Audrey Weston sniffed.
“We cops stick together — sometimes,” Newby said. “Well, ladies and gentlemen, that’s it for now. This house, as the scene of a homicide, is going to be under seal, so I’d appreciate it if you left as soon as possible.”
On the plane out of Boston the Inspector said, “Why so close-mouthed, Ellery?”
“I can’t decide whether to admire the cleverness or marvel at the stupidity.”
“Of whom? What are you talking about?”
“Of whoever left those three things in Johnny’s bedroom along with his body. Each one points to a different ex-Mrs. Benedict.”
“We’ve been all through that. It’s a cinch somebody planted them.”
“It certainly looks that way.”
“The thing is, though — what would the point be of framing three different women for the murder? And aside from that. A frameup has to make sense on the face of it — it has to look legitimate if it’s to fool the cops. What investigating officer in his right mind would believe that three women visited that bedroom, presumably at different times, and each one dropped an article of her clothing on the scene, presumably in her excitement or by accident, and so implicated herself? Anyone who’d expect a ‘frameup’ like that to work would have to be AWOL from the cuckoo house.”